Writer
Ramesh Thakur
Ramesh Thakur is a former UN assistant secretary-general, emeritus professor at the Australian National University and director of its Centre for Nuclear Non-Proliferation and Disarmament, and Senior Research Fellow at the Toda Peace Institute. He is the editor of <i><a href="https://www.routledge.com/The-Nuclear-Ban-Treaty-A-Transformational-Reframing-of-the-Global-Nuclear/Thakur/p/book/9781032130705">The Nuclear Ban Treaty: a Transformational Reframing of the Global Nuclear Order</a></i>.
-
COLIN BROWN. The Indonesia-Australia Closer Economic Partnership Agreement (IA-CEPA): A Game Changer? (Australian Outlook, 5 Sep 2019)
Despite their geographical proximity, Australia and Indonesia are minor trading partners. In 2018, Australian merchandise exports to Indonesia were valued at just $6,823 million, and imports from Indonesia $4,996 million. Trade in services was smaller still, as the exports to Indonesia were worth $1,697 and imports were worth $4,068 million. Neither country is in the Continue reading »
-
ANTHONY ALBANESE. Tribute to Graham Freudenberg (House of Representatives 10 Sep 2019)
Graham Freudenberg climbed inside the soul of the Australian Labor Party in search of the words that lay there. He came back to us with an entire language. When Freudy said the Labor Party was built on speeches, the identity of the master builder was never a mystery to the rest of us. He spoke Continue reading »
-
RAGHURAM G. RAJAN. The True Toll of the Trade War (Project Syndicate, 5 Sep 2019)
Another day, another attack on trade. Why is it that every dispute – whether over intellectual property (IP), immigration, environmental damage, or war reparations – now produces new threats to trade? Continue reading »
-
DOMINIC O’SULLIVAN. Indigenous people no longer have the legal right to say no to the Adani mine – here’s what it means for equality (The Conversation, 5 Sep 2019)
Last week, the Queensland government extinguished native title over tracts of land in the Galilee Basin so the Adani coal mine could proceed. Continue reading »
-
YVES TIBERGHIEN. Belt and Road Summit in Hong Kong: Toward a BRI 2.0? (Australian Outlook, 5 Sep 2019)
From 11 to 12 September 2019, the fourth Edition of the Hong Kong Belt and Road Summit is due to take place at the Wanchai Convention Center. The Belt and Road Initiative (BRI) is now in its sixth year since its original launch in fall 2013 refers to the massive mobilisation effort led by China Continue reading »
-
HENRY LITTON. Joshua Wong article in Australian 2 Sep
Joshua Wong, in his article in The Australian of 2 September, made a valid point when he asked rhetorically “who were the ones who did not give young people a stake in society ?” Continue reading »
-
PEPE ESCOBAR. Welcome to the Indo-Russia maritime Silk Road (Asia Times, 5 Sep 2019)
There’s no way to follow the complex inner workings of the Eurasia integration process without considering what takes place annually at the Eastern Economic Forumin Vladivostok. Continue reading »
-
Urgent appeal to save nuclear agreements (Japan Times 25-8-19)
HIROSHIMA – The Hiroshima Round Table held its seventh annual meeting last Wednesday and Thursday. For the first time, in recognition of the uniquely dangerous international security environment since the dawn of the atomic age in this beautiful city, the Round Table issued an urgent appeal to maintain existing nuclear arms control, disarmament and nonproliferation Continue reading »
-
Cardinal Pell’s guilty verdict is deeply troubling
In 2017, Cardinal George Pell became the highest ranking Catholic Church official to be charged with sex offences as Archbishop of Melbourne (1996–2001). His first trial produced a 10-2 hung jury in favour of acquittal. In the second trial, on 11 December 2018 he was convicted of five charges of sexually assaulting two boys in Continue reading »
-
Tongue firmly in cheek: Does the world have a responsibility to protect American victims of atrocities?
George Mickhail did us all a great service by noting the vast disparity in forceful response to protestors by the police forces of France against the Gilets Jaunes (Yellow Vests), and those of Hong Kong against the anti-China protestors. The French are clearly well ahead of the Hong Kong authorities in the brutality stakes but Continue reading »
-
Kashmir: the battleground that will shape the fate of India (CapX 15-8-19)
On 5 August, the governing Bharatiya Janata Party (BJP) fulfilled a founding ambition and repeated election promise: they ended Kashmir’s unique status in India’s federal structure by scrapping Article 370 of the Constitution. Continue reading »
-
A nuclear world in disarray. (The Strategist 7.8.2019)
We are in a uniquely dangerous period in the atomic age. Geopolitical tensions have spiked in Europe, in the Middle East, on the subcontinent and in East Asia. The nuclear arms control architecture is fraying and crumbling, but no negotiations are underway to reduce global nuclear stockpiles. Continue reading »
-
The US Killed INF, Russia Buried It, China Will Not Disinter It (Australian Outlook 8-8-19)
The end of the first disarmament agreement of the nuclear age will almost certainly be accompanied by American pressure on allies to host US intermediate range missiles. Continue reading »
-
India’s Bad Bet in Kashmir (Project Syndicate 7-8-19)
The combination of surging Hindu nationalism in India, Kashmiri grievances against India’s government, Pakistan-backed jihadist groups waging hybrid warfare in Indian Kashmir, the new normal of India’s retaliatory military strikes on Pakistan, and growing nuclear stockpiles has turned Kashmir into a tinderbox. India’s decision to withdraw Kashmir’s special status threatens to be the spark that Continue reading »
-
The cup that slipped: Here are some cricket lessons my country of citizenship can teach my country of origin (Times of India 3-8-19)
As an Indian, after the semi-final loss in the Cricket World Cup, an old refrain from a 1948 song entered my head: ‘Ek dil ke tukde hazaar huye’ (one heart shattered into a thousand shards). As a Kiwi, after the final’s loss, came the second line: ‘Koyi yahan gira, koyi wahan gira’ (some fell hither, Continue reading »
-
Boris Johnson’s Reticence on UK Ambassador was Responsible and Mature.
Johnson’s judicious refusal to be baited will give him the political space to begin repairing bruised relations with the White House and its tweet-prone cantankerous occupant. Continue reading »
-
Professor White, the bomb can endanger but not defend Australia.
Nuclear weapons have dubious operational utility and discarding treaty obligations would leave the stench of hypocrisy. Continue reading »
-
Trump’s strategic incoherence on India policy Part 2
In an editorial to mark Secretary of State Mike Pompeo’s recent visit, The Times of India alluded to US policy incoherence in urging Washington to make up its mind between dealing with India as an ally or a frenemy. Earlier, in February Washington broke from its traditional non-committal stance on India–Pakistan skirmishes to side openly with India’s narrative on Continue reading »
-
Trump’s strategic incoherence on India policy Part 1
The distance from hubris to delusion is short and the Trump administration is bent on covering it in a sprint in its India policy. Diffuse reciprocity is the diplomatic glue that holds international relationships together. A healthy and long-lasting bilateral relationship rests upon a history of shared interests and values that embody common expectations, reciprocity, and equivalence of Continue reading »
-
Trump’s disdain for Japan is insulting and high-risk
In his forays abroad, US President Donald Trump increasingly resembles a bull carrying his own china shop on his back, to be set down for wrecking at diplomatic confabs. At the moment a grave crisis seems imminent with regard to Iran. As former German Foreign Minister Joschka Fischer notes, soon Trump will come to a Continue reading »
-
Folau saga: when employers and sponsors become the thought police
Like Paul Collins, I am destined for Israel Folau’s version of hell on multiple counts of sin. Indeed I will be even deeper in it since I have repeatedly, over several decades, refused to embrace the love and salvation offered by Jesus Christ despite countless missionaries and proselytisers pleading with me to do so and Continue reading »
-
Modi vs who? The question needed a clear answer in a quasi-presidential contest (The Times of India)
No Bihari political scientist can possibly understate the importance of caste and religion in shaping the electoral contest. However, there is one other factor that is of growing importance. In all parliamentary democracies across the world, including Australia, power is being centralised in the office of the PM. PMs, including Narendra Modi, increasingly resemble and Continue reading »
-
Press freedoms: ‘No one is above the law’ is a slogan, not a policy
On the one hand, Australia lacks media protections of the type found in the US and Europe that enshrine free speech in human rights charters. On the other hand, we may well have more national-security and anti-terror laws than any other Western democracy, with around 70 passed or amended since the 9/11 terrorist attacks on Continue reading »
-
Tiananmen anniversary revisited
Readers of my generation will recall the horror story told to the US Congressional Human Rights Caucus on 10 October 1990 by a 15-year old Kuwaiti girl. ‘Nayirah’ claimed to have witnessed invading Iraqi troops storming a Kuwaiti hospital, ripping 15 babies out of incubators and leaving them to die on the cold floor. On Continue reading »
-
India’s 2019 elections
In the most polarising, toxic elections in India’s history, the voter turnout of (67.1% (604 million) was the highest ever. Fierce social media wars contributed to the nastiness. It is hard to say whether political discourse was coarsened more by PM Narendra Modi or his opponents. Continue reading »
-
Labor must look in the mirror
In foreshadowing Donald Trump’s victory six months before the 2016 election, I had written: ‘Of all the candidates in both parties, Trump’s appeal seems to reach the broadest and deepest with respect to region, class, education and income… They are looking for an in-your-face champion who will stick it to the snobs (elites) and scolds Continue reading »
-
Sanctions – a follow-up
Several people have written seeking clarification and explanation of some of my arguments in my previous article on sanctions, published here on Friday 10 May. The academic literature on the success and effectiveness of sanctions is in something of a mess, for a number of reasons. Continue reading »
-
Killing them softly with sanctions
For three years Washington has been consumed by charges of Russian interference in the last US presidential election. In the latest sign that the Trump administration doesn’t do irony, on Tuesday Vice President Mike Pence threatened Venezuelan judges with unspecified consequences if they refused to back opposition leader Juan Gaidó, while lifting sanctions on a Continue reading »
-
Australia’s China–US choice is three dimensional, not binary (Part 2)
By framing the choice as a binary one, most Australian analysts typically explain the threat from China as including its challenge to the rules-based international order. This has been true, for example, of several recent defence and foreign policy white papers. A major advantage of framing Australia’s foreign policy dilemma as three-dimensional is that Continue reading »
